The Best Things In Life Are Free … Books

Bit of a doozy for you this week, folks, courtesy of the outrageously generous folk at Serpent’s Tail. Up for grabs are two – yes, TWO! – sets of David Peace’s Red Riding Quartet, comprising 1974, 1977, 1980 and1983. First, the blurb elves:

Commissioned by Channel 4, Revolution Films are producing three feature films based on the Red Riding Quartet, to be premiered at the Berlin Film Festival before a UK premiere on Channel 4 in spring 2009, with a theatrical release likely to follow.

Nice. As for those pesky critic-types:

‘Breathless, extravagant, ultra-violent’ – Independent on Sunday

‘British crime fiction’s most exciting new voice in decades’ – GQ

‘Brilliant’ – The Times

‘The pace is relentless, the style staccato-plus and the morality bleak and forlorn ... Peace’s voice is powerful and unique’ – The Guardian

‘A triumph of sustained narrative energy that reinvigorates the British crime novel’ – Daily Telegraph

So there you have it. To be in with a chance of winning a set of the Red Riding Quartet, just answer the following question.

Is the real-life ghoul who haunts the backdrop to the Red Riding Quartet called:
(a) The Yorkshire Ripper;
(b) The Yorkshire Pudding;
(c) The Yorkshire Cookie Monster;
(d) John Giles.

Answers via the comment box, please, leaving a contact email address, and using (at) rather than @ to confound the spam-munchkins, before noon on September 2nd. Et bon chance, mes amis …

Landy: Of Hope And Glory

Yet more good news for Derek Landy, folks. According to The Bookseller, Skulduggery Pleasant has been chosen as a contender in a one-off Richard and Judy children’s books special, to be aired on October 28th as part of Channel 4’s literacy season. Nominated in the third of the ‘Early’, ‘Developing’, ‘Confident’ and ‘Fluent’ reading sections, and with two winners to be announced from each section, the broadcast should see Skulduggery Pleasant go huge in the UK, where the Richard and Judy Show has become arguably the most important opinion-former. The full list of nominees is available at Beattie’s Book Blog. Meanwhile, Landy will be putting in an appearance at the Children's Book Festival, which takes place in County Clare from October 3rd-26th. To paraphrase Robert Louis Stevenson on Treasure Island: “If this don’t fetch the kids, they’ve gone rotten since I knew ’em.”